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Nikoo Posted 14 years ago
Vocabulary
Help with a phrase
Hi, 
This is a long sentence from Woolf's Night and Day. Could you please explain what the phrase "all gathered together," means here? How does it describe the old man?
"Again and again she was brought down into the drawing room to receive the blessing of some awful distinguished old man, who sat, even to her childish eye, somewhat apart, all gathered together and clutching a stick, unlike an ordinary visitor in her father's own armchair, and her father himself was there, unlike himself, too, a little excited and very polite."
Thanks in advance.
Nikoo
This is a long sentence from Woolf's Night and Day. Could you please explain what the phrase "all gathered together," means here? How does it describe the old man?
"Again and again she was brought down into the drawing room to receive the blessing of some awful distinguished old man, who sat, even to her childish eye, somewhat apart, all gathered together and clutching a stick, unlike an ordinary visitor in her father's own armchair, and her father himself was there, unlike himself, too, a little excited and very polite."
Thanks in advance.
Nikoo
Top answer
All gathered together = self-composed, organized and ready with what he wanted to say when he blessed her.
- All gathered together = self-composed, organized and ready with what he wanted to say when he blessed her.
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7 Answers
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All gathered together = self-composed, organized and ready with what he wanted to say when he blessed her.
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Hi my understanding is, it's a phrase to describe the figure, the posture of that old man. According to my imagination of that scene, because he was an old man, and he clutched a stick, he must be an old man with bones and skin shrinking, so that looks "all gathered together", like a dried fruit...How do you guys think about my explanation?
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I think you have an overactive imagination, Freda. Have you read any Virginia Woolf? She does not write caricatures.
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I haven't read her books yet...I like reading sci-fi books. But they're on my reading list now
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Note that this was written in 1919 and the writer is British. This phrase apparently has considerable negative connotations, since it is noted that he is "awful" and "unlike an ordinary visitor" and "clutching a stick," and he's sitting in her father's own armchair, and her father seems uneasy ("excited and very polite"). However the exact meaning of the phrase, current in British slang at the t
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Occam's razor suggests that we need not posit arcane slang or imaginative readings. Plenty of similar uses exist:
He gathered himself together for the next assault.
Burlingame was nonplussed this time, but he gathered himself together.
He gathered himself together, waited poised in readiness for any eventuality--and blessed his lucky stars to find his apprehensi
He gathered himself together for the next assault.
Burlingame was nonplussed this time, but he gathered himself together.
He gathered himself together, waited poised in readiness for any eventuality--and blessed his lucky stars to find his apprehensi
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